Lots of people send me nice stuff which uses interesting materials/finishing/processes (and hopefully some of our papers!). Sadly, I can't get to show these pieces of work to everyone ...so this is the best way to show others what people are up to. It's also my way of thanking those that I work with and take the time and trouble to send me lovely, interesting things.
justin@fennerpaper.co.uk

Thursday, 29 May 2014

As everyone in the world knows, in only a couple of weeks time, the World Cup begins in Brazil. In celebration, east London studio Crispin Finn have produced a beautiful wall planner. Simply produced in their trademark red, white and blue (all of their personal work appears in just these three colours) it has been hand silkscreen printed. A truly stunning, visually stimulating planner.

The size of the planner is 500x700mm and is silkscreen printed in 2 colours. It is printed on our Shiro Echo, Bright White 120gsm which is a 100% recycled paper (which also has FSC accreditation) produced by Favini in Italy.

Tuesday, 27 May 2014

These are some beautifully thick business cards produced for wedding photographer Lee Robbins. Silkscreened in just one colour (white), they are produced ﻿on our Construction Blackstone 1500mics.

Picture below, show the thickness of the card at 1.5mm!﻿

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Art direction and design is by London based agency Bold & Bold. They were commissioned to design the identity and develop the website, so this card forms only part of this project. As well as the literature, there is the website and other collateral such as Cd wallets etc.

Friday, 23 May 2014

Last week, I wrote about the exhibition stand that we had at PG Live, at the Business Design Centre in Islington. The exhibition is aimed firmly at the greeting card publishers and retail buyers and it was amazing to see over 200 exhibitors showing a diverse range of card designs.

On our stand we had a whole pallet of paper (Colorset, Spring Green) and we ran a competition to guess the number of sheets on the pallet with the closest guess winning £500 worth of paper! We simply asked people who came onto the stand to guess a figure, which they then wrote on the back of a business card and placed in our goldfish bowl. Well this week, we've been busy checking the number of sheets on the pallet - it was a mixture of 350gsm, 270gsm and some 120gsm, some of which was cut to SRA3. I can now reveal, the total number of sheets is 2,242.

Jack from Timbergram guessed the closest number at 2,253, with the next closest guess being 2,225.

Timbergram is a really interesting greetings concept as they are postcards actually printed on wood (cutting out the papermaking process completely!) Manufactured from 3mm birch, the wood cards are screen-printed or engraved and are available in over 500 shops nationwide, including Selfridges, Oliver Bonas, The Conran Shop, together with many small boutique shops and museums and art galleries. They can also be ordered online and be produced with custom messages. http://timbergram.com/

The Timbergram was inspired by the original wooden postcards of the early 1900′s and is as much of a gift as a greetings card. They use sustainably sourced wood from forests in Eastern Europe and the timber is FSC certified.
The range covers all occasions, and is designed and produced in the UK.

Maybe with his recent win, Jack will have to move things on a little further and start using some paper! Congratulations to Jack.

Thursday, 22 May 2014

Kings' College in London is one of the country's leading universities. Widening participation is one of the eight strategic priorities for the college. There is a programme of targeted activities across the London area with the aim of improving progression and success of students under-represented at King's and other universities.

Anne-Marie Canning is the Head of Widening Participation and commissioned this yearbook to report on the department's work throughout the year.

Size is 263x200mm, portrait and is perfect bound. It has a 4pp cover and a 44pp text which is printed on Omnia 280gsm and 150gsm. The whole job is printed CMYK, offset litho. The cover is hot foil blocked in a high gloss white foil and is striking.﻿

The images look superb on the Omnia; the subtle mono colours used for divider spreads and the reproduction of the four colour images with their darker areas and heavy ink coverage is superb. The Omnia has kept all the detail in those heavy areas of CMYK together with the tactility of an uncoated paper feel- detail which would be lost on other paper.

The publication has a 5mm spine and even though it is perfect bound, as opposed to section sewn, it feels strong and opens well. The relationship between the text and cover weights with the size of book and binding, all works superbly.

Wednesday, 21 May 2014

Yesterday was the start of Clerkenwell Design Week and I popped in to have a quick look. In it's 5th year, it's now firmly established as one of the London design community's favourite events and is growing bigger and better every year.
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It takes place all over Clerkenwell, combining exhibitions with lectures and sixty 'open-house' showrooms.

Tuesday, 20 May 2014

Last week, I wrote about the Fenner Paper stand at PG Live (Progressive Greetings Exhibition) which gave us an opportunity to show our range of boards to the greeting card industry.

During the exhibition, I had a wander round and visited the 'Springboard' section; this is where first time exhibitors and up and coming publishers show their designs. I was walking through and spotted some lovely cards on a brown ribbed material. I stopped and had a nice chat with Vanessa Bowerman who is the person behind the publishing imprint 'Your Lifetile'

Sure enough, I was delighted to discover that her Mantastic range is all printed on our Rib-Tone [2 sided] 340gsm! Vanessa runs her own design company in Cardiff and started creating framed gifts and handmade cards a few years ago in her spare time.

Vanessa now publishes a range of cards and this was her first 'trade' show and she was very happy with the response from the retail card buyers visiting the show.

The cards are digitally printed on an HP Indigo Press by specialist greeting card printers, The Imaging Centre.

...and with Father's Day coming up on June 15th, what better time is there than to look at a manly range such as this!

Friday, 16 May 2014

What is ...Number 5
Regular followers of this blog will know that in the middle of the month, I publish a "What is ....? post. The article covers various aspects of paper, printing and finishing in greater depth. However, many of these subjects are complex, so these posts are only intended to be a brief introduction to the topic.

What is ...Cast Coated Paper?

'Cast Coated' papers and boards have an extremely high gloss, reflective surface on one side with an uncoated reverse (see below about 2 sided boards).

The coating formulation is a mix of china clay, satin white (calcium sulphate and alumina) and precipitated calcium carbonate (chalk) held together with binding agents such as latex - so basically the same coating as for all coated papers (matt/gloss/silk).

The high gloss result is due to the use of a chromium plated roller, heat and elongated drying line. The wet coating which is applied in the traditional manner, via a series of applicator rollers, is pressed against a highly finished chromium plated metal cylinder which is heated on the inside. As the coating film dries, it takes on the even, level glossy surface of the casting surface (ie the chrome plated roller).

The process used today has remained largely unchanged since the early 1950's when an American company called S.D Warren developed and then patented the process. In order to stimulate the market in other areas of the world, they 'licensed' the technology to paper manufacturers, including two in the UK: Star Paper Mill (Blackburn) in 1954 and Tullis Russell (Scotland) in 1989, plus various other paper mills in Europe.

Cast coated papers and boards are mainly used in labelling and the "luxury packaging" market. In the 1960's and 1970's, when glossy was seen as modern and luxurious, cast coated products were really big. The products had names such as Astralux, Chromolux, Lustrulux - (you probably get the common "lux" theme!) and luxury packaging for such brands as Chanel relished in the clean, sleek, modern look.

A development was the addition of pigments (colours) on the coating and self coloured boards with a colour one side and a white uncoated reverse became a highly desirable board for business cards and membership cards - back in the 1960/70/80's when colour printing was expensive and much printing was still letterpress, using a coloured board (especially a glossy one!) was a way of introducing colour, cost effectively into a black and white world!

Further developments have included the additions of metallic colours and pearlescent colours. Also, two sided products (in white) are now available by 'pasting' two one sided boards together back to back.

You maybe thinking from the way I am writing this that cast coated papers and boards are a thing of the past, they most certainly are not! It's just that with the advent of film lamination (more commonly known as gloss lamination) a large part of the market for cast coated boards disappeared. Although it should be remembered that gloss lamination is a plastic based process and makes recycling, much, much harder. If you want to see a beautiful job produced on Astralux, you don't have to look any further than the Alexander McQueen project here: http://justinsamazingworldatfennerpaper.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/mcq-aw13.html

Fenner paper is the UK stockists for the market leading Astralux range manufactured by Favini in Italy (although, as they say on the BBC "other brands are also available")

The range comes in 27 different shades and also includes a black board, reverse, with a shiny black coated front - very nice...

Wednesday, 14 May 2014

This is a very special publication published by 26, which is a writers' collective founded in 2002. The project is to celebrate and demonstrate the power of stories to inspire learning - especially for the young.

The size is 170x120mm portrait, saddle stitched. It has a 4pp cover and a 64pp text. There are five different colour covers, all printed on our Colorset 120gsm. The text is printed on our lovely Offenbach Bible 60gsm, which combined with the light cover makes for a compact, light feel which flows beautifully in the hand as you turn the pages. As you will see from the images below, the reproduction of the illustrations is simply superb.

The writers who contributed to the project were each allocated a letter of the alphabet to start their poem with. To bring the poems to life and make the book visually exciting, 26 illustrators were invited to respond to each poem including the letter in their image, with great results...

It's worth pointing out that although the different colour covers had no definitive meaning, they were just run on different colours - it's a great way of creating a 'series' at little or no extra cost.

Design is by Clerkenwell based studio, Design by St. Creative Partners are Steve Fenn and Tom Pollard and the designer is Stef Bushell.

Printing is by Push and the repruduction on our Offenbach Bible 60gsm is truly scrumptious! You can read more about the project on the 26 website below

Tuesday, 13 May 2014

Today, the Progressive Greetings Exhibition or "PG Live",as it's known, opens at the Business Design Centre in Islington. Aimed at the greeting card industry, it's open on 13th &14th May and here's the picture of our stand...

Our modest stand of 3 x 2 metres, features a whole pallet of paper and displays our boards that are especially suitable for greetings cards and as you can see from the display below, we now have quite a few! Fenner Paper is proud to have been the first paper company to be granted Associate Membership of the Greeting Card Association (GCA), in 2013.

Our stand is designed by Vincent Design and also features a 'guess the number of sheets on the pallet' competition with the closest guess winning £500 worth of paper!

If you are a designer or publisher of greeting cards, please do come along and we look forward to welcoming you - we're on stand 506.

Friday, 9 May 2014

﻿This is the magnificent brochure for the new Trianon Collection from luxury brand Manuel Canovas, based in Paris. Trianon is a range of wallpapers and fabrics based on paintings, drawn in Chinoiserie style, by Jean-Baptiste Pillement in the 18th Century.

The size of the publication is 240mm x 170mm, portrait and is saddle stitched, printed on our StarFine White. 4pp cover on 300gsm and 8pp text on 200gsm. Printed CMYK offset litho and hot foil blocked in gold metallic foil on the cover.

StarFine is a quality, uncoated paper and as the images show, image reproduction is excellent. The detail of the wallpaper and fabrics is stunning - great detail for an uncoated paper, colours are bright and vivid.

The brass wire used for the saddle stitches is a really lovely touch - which brilliantly compliments the gold foiling on the cover.﻿

Click on image to enlarge

Manuel Canovas is one of the Colefax group brands and this beautiful piece of literature has been created in house at Colefax & Fowler. Designer on this project is Rachael Ashley. Print production is by Pureprint handled by Richard Owers.

About Me

Tall, lanky and with glasses is how most people whom I have met might describe me. Hopefully they'll also remember that I'm enthusiastic about what I do. I've been working in the paper industry for many years, so people seem to think that I know quite a bit (I would also point out that I've also forgotten a lot!). My occupation is actually a "Paper Merchant" (it says that on my Marriage Certificate!) and I am the Marketing Director at Fenner Paper. We specialise in finding the materials and paper solutions for graphic designers that are producing printed work. I also work closely with "creative" printers - although there are only a few of them anyway! (I shan't name names!). Fenner Paper is only a relatively small company although we handle some large projects and we have quite a high profile. So the business that we do is handled on a personal level - and hopefully that is demonstrated in this blog - read and enjoy!
My address is
Fenner Paper Company Ltd
15 Orchard Business Centre
Sanderson Way,
Tonbridge, Kent TN9 1QF
Tel: 01732 771100